I remember staring for hours at a time at the words he wrote on the window of the dining room, and wondering how he did it. It read:
“On this day my daughter Una was born, while the trees are all glass chandeliers.”
What a sentence for a boy to dream about! It is still there, and there are many other windows with his name only.
I had never seen any diamond rings; none of my womenfolk wore rings, and it seemed strange to me how anyone could write on a pane of glass!
Hawthorne, contrary to public opinion, did not own the Old Manse, but only rented it from the Ripleys. In fact, he lived there only a year or more. It was a great disillusion to find later that the grown-ups of my family did not consider him a great hero, and in fact thought his writing on the windows a horrible defacement of the house—especially as they had had some difficulty in collecting the rent.
My most vivid memory of Hawthorne is during the time I was attending the intermediate school. In front of the building was the town square, separated from the school by an iron fence. Here we boys used to play baseball, and upon going home, I, forgetful as always, would invariably leave behind my dinner pail or my jacket. I was invariably sent back to fetch it.
By this time the shadows had begun to fall, and very often I saw Hawthorne and his wife pass by, arm in arm, she in white and he dark—dark as the coming night. They spoke in low tones and seemed to be oblivious of any passers-by. I was told that he went out only at night, and this made him all the more romantic to me. The truth was that he was very shy, and so, in the daytime, went only into the woods in back of his house. He was a great lover of children, but so fearful of meeting them that he concealed himself in a hollow tree in order to see the festival that the school gave once a year.
Mr. Channing told me that once he was rowing with Hawthorne on the Assabet River, the north branch of the Concord. He remarked that the reflection of the hemlocks in the water was unusual.
“Which is the reflection?” said Hawthorne, pointing first to the hemlocks and then to the picture in the water. This seems to me to be very characteristic of Hawthorne’s method of thought.
Concord was an historical spot, and in the summer was overrun with tourists, who, not content with viewing the scene of the “shot heard round the world,” etc., would invade the Old Manse. These gangs were allowed to go all over the house in which Hawthorne once lived, much to the discomfort and derision of the occupants. One day, when I was still quite a young man, there was a party of people upstairs nosing around, and my uncle Gore (Judge Ripley) and I were in the sitting room. My sister had brought in, not long before, a long, draggly bit of Spanish moss and put it on the chimney shelf. While the tourists were upstairs, my uncle rose and, taking the moss, went to the front door, where, climbing upon a chair, he hung it. It trailed down three or four feet. When the party came down and started to go out, the moss was evidently in the way. Lifting it up so that the door would open without catching it, my uncle bowed and with his best manner as chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, remarked: